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I could be wrong about this, but essentially, they go into ancient graves and tombs and things, and break all the curses that ancient wizards put on them to keep grave robbers out. So that Gringotts can go in and get whatever they need, or, possibly, they break the curses so that Muggles cannot get hurt.

And no, I can't find anything anywhere that really clarifies what curse breakers do. I kind of get the impression that they are a sort of justified grave robber, but there is also a lot of academia related to it. You have to study lots of ancient magic, Arithmancy we know for sure, and I would imagine Ancient Runes, etc.

To my knowledge, there isn't anything in the books that definitely lists things that curse breakers do, exactly. Bill never really mentions much about it, if I remember correctly, and I think the main bit of info about it comes from a scene in OotP, where the students are looking at the pamphlets. But that only provides info about the classes and some qualifications, I think.

Really, though, Amanda Vega's answer seems great, and it's what I've thought of whenever I think of the curse breakers. The Wizarding Banks probably hold a lot more treasures than just all of the individual wizarding families money, in which case they would have a strong interest in the priceless treasures and such of some of the ancient Wizarding World (like Egypt).

A "justified grave robber", I think, is perhaps one of the best ways to sum it up. I don't think they would do it so much to save Muggles from getting hurt, but to retrieve (or at least discover, if for some reason they don't remove the treasure(s) from the places) some of these priceless items.